It was drama in the men’s football event of the Paris 2024 Olympic games as Morocco defeated Argentina 2-1 in Group B on Wednesday.
According to The Athletic Football, there was a chaotic end to the game between Argentina and Morocco — with the game restarting nearly two hours after it had appeared to finish 2-2 following a late goal by the Argentines which led to crowd trouble.
Morocco took a 2-0 lead thanks to a goal in either half from Soufiane Rahimi, before Argentina reduced the deficit through Giuliano Simeone, son of the Atletico Madrid manager Diego, in the 68th minute.
Argentina thought they had scored a 106th-minute equaliser (after 15 minutes of stoppage time had been added) when Cristian Medina headed home after the ball had hit the Morocco woodwork twice in the seconds beforehand.
There were wild scenes in the stands, with a number of cups and bottles thrown towards the celebrating Argentina players.
A small number of fans wearing Morocco colours ran on to the pitch and they were chased by stewards.
Broadcast footage appeared to show a flare-like object go off on the touchline where the two dugouts were located and where a number of players were stood. Players ducked and covered their heads, and swiftly left the pitch as riot police stood nearby.
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The game appeared to have ended at 4.10pm BST/11.10am ET, finishing in a 2-2 draw.
News broke 90 minutes later that Argentina’s equalising goal had been disallowed for offside.
It is unclear exactly why the match restarted and when that decision was made. The disallowed goal had been scored in the 16th minute of second-half injury time, when there were only supposed to be 15.
When it did restart, the referee Glenn Nyberg consulted the VAR pitch side monitor to review Argentina’s equaliser.
Argentina’s Bruno Amione was judged by the semi-automated offside technology to have been offside in the build-up and the goal was disallowed.
The players had already been made aware of this decision before returning to the field.
Three minutes of added time were played in the empty stadium before the final whistle was blown at 6.07pm ET/1.07pm ET, nearly two hours after many thought the match was over.
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